


Much Improved

by piperholmes



Series: Positively Revivified [1]
Category: Sanditon (TV 2019)
Genre: Childbirth, F/M, Fatherhood, Pregnany, artwork, new born
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-27
Updated: 2020-02-27
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:21:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22918396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piperholmes/pseuds/piperholmes
Summary: A short interlude following a blessed event: Sidney meets his daughter for the first time.
Relationships: Charlotte Heywood/Sidney Parker
Series: Positively Revivified [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1653700
Comments: 30
Kudos: 143





	Much Improved

**Author's Note:**

> I posted this on Tumblr and decided to try and see if I could get it to post here. This is unbeta’d and really just an experiment, but if it’s well received then it has potential to be expanded. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

“Well Mr. Parker, what do you think?” Charlotte asked quietly, unable to take her eyes off the tiny baby in her arms. The exhausted, gleeful smile on her face the first contradiction of parenthood as she completed the transformation into Mother. “What do you think of our little Miss Cordelia Jane Parker?”

Sidney had only been able to reverently breath his wife’s name as he entered the bedchamber before wedging himself against her, relief from the long hours of worry and fear as she’d labored to bring their child into the world flooding his chest, leaving him a befuddled mess. He had thought that upon seeing them both well, all pink and warm, wrapped up in bed, he’d lose the ache in his heart. And yet there seemed something more solid had taken its place, something he was unable to name. As he gazed down at his girls, one so familiar to him now—his home, his life, his very soul—and one so new and vulnerable—a tiny stranger who needed him more than any person had ever needed him—he realized that what he thought was love had only been a precursor to this moment. His purpose was to keep them safe, to provide, to worship, to love and to be loved.

Their little Cordelia. Daughter of the sea. She had the tiniest fingernails he’d every seen, and he couldn’t take his eyes off her little punted nose and delicate eyelashes. A thrill went through him at the hint of a dimple in her chin. He thought he had been prepared to love this child but he had no way of knowing that what he would really feel was a conviction that she would one day command the oceans and calm the waves.

“I fear, Mrs. Parker, my mind is so full of thoughts I am unable to form a single answer,” he admitted, his low, gravelly voice giving a heartbeat to his words. “I think I am more in love with you than ever, and I did not believe that possible. I can admit now to some natural trepidation and fear as I waited to hear word, but I always knew my Admiral Heywood would best any challenge, and, yet, here I find that I am more in awe than even the poets could portend.”

Charlotte looked up at him, her sleepy eyes growing glassy once again. “It was not...easy,” she admitted with some hesitation. “But looking at her now, its as if I can see nothing of what life was without her.”

“I think she is probably the most beautiful baby to ever be born,” Sidney decided. He’d been unable to fully picture the baby in the months leading up, even as he’d pressed his palm against the firmness of her belly, feeling the child move beneath his hand. He had been unsure what to expect watching his wife grow round and full with his baby, a new tenderness for her firmly taking root even in the face of her stubbornness. But seeing his little girl, feeling her, smelling her, he was overwhelmed with all that implied. “I struggle to want to both keep her protected from the world and introduce her to every bit of it. How can that be?”

He looked to his wife with pleading, and met her tender, patient, understanding gaze.

“And I think, my dear Charlotte, that you’ve saved me...” Whatever had lodged itself in his chest had spread and formed a lump in his throat. He thought of those dark days when he believed he’d lost her forever, when an eternity of heartbreak stretched before him and he believed he would never so much as have her forgiveness, much less her love. And, to hold her now, to hold the life they’d created together, body and soul, in a moment of enduring passion and rediscovered affection, the child of promise that was worth every sacrifice, every tear, every smile, every pain, every loss, every win, left him in an unanswerable paradox.

“I have never felt such weakness nor such strength before,” he said in wonder, forcing the words out of his chest as he reached for the tiny finger of his daughter. His daughter. She gripped his long finger, clinging to him even in her first sleep, and he knew he was lost. He could only press his lips to his wife’s forehead as his cheeks grew damp.

She wrapped her own fingers around his, the soft new skin of her daughter and the rough, calloused skin of her husband beneath her touch. She held them in the contented, perfect silence, her own tears escaping, as their tiny family finally became whole.

The end.

Thank you for reading!


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